"Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power." -Oscar Wilde

15 days sober When I leave rehearsal on Wednesday night, I know that something is wrong before I even see the car. There’s a crowd of people milling around my parking space—and they know it’s my car, they have to. I drive the only vintage Ferrari in Lakewood. For fuck’s sake, I might drive the only red car in Lakewood, other than Corey Copicetti’s burgundy pick-up. It’s a noticeable vehicle, especially considering the fact that most of my classmates have been around to see me speed into the parking lot every morning, windows all rolled down while I blast my stereo and chain-smoke. No one here should have any doubt that it’s my car; that’s sort of the problem, I realize now. The first thing I notice is that someone has dented the side strakes. Those iconic, cheese grater sides—the second thing I fell in love with on this car, right after the color—are smashed in, probably with a baseball bat or a lacrosse stick or something. All of the lights have been shattered. The mirror on the passenger side is dangling halfway off. Deep, zig-zagging gouges have been keyed into the paintjob. There are words scribbled all over the hood in Sharpie. I don’t come close enough to read them. Instead, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and dial the number for the Lakewood Police Department. Once I’ve connected, I say dully, “Hi. My name’s Garen Anderson, and my car’s been vandalized. I’m standing in the parking lot of Lakewood High School. Would it be possible for me to get someone out here so I can file an incident report? I’m going to need it for my insurance company.” A few of the drama club members gaping at my car actually start when I speak; I don’t think most of them noticed my arrival. Once I’ve confirmed that a cop is on his way out to meet me, I begin to slowly circle the car, using my cell phone to take pictures of every injury to it. The lights. The strakes. The scratches. The mirror. Only the words and phrases written on the hood give me pause, but I still photograph each one individually. Faggot. Go back to rehab, you still need it. Cokehead. Smoke this, Anderson. Have fun getting AIDS! And then, right along the seam separating the hood from the body of the car, in another person’s handwriting, is your little brother good in bed? On the bright side, if I ever decide I need to make myself throw up again, I can just remember how I feel right now, reading that line. The realization that the aforementioned “little brother” might be somewhere around here is enough to make me snap out of it. I look around at the collection of people and say, “Do, um… do any of you guys know who did this?” “It was like this when we came outside,” Miranda replies. Her eyes are fixed on the writing, but after a moment of silence, she turns her attention to me. She actually looks kind of disappointed, but I’m not sure if her disappointment is directed at whoever wrote the words, or at me, because they’re justified. She says, “Do you want us to wait with you until the police get here?” “Nah, you can all go home. It’s been a long day,” I say. I want to sit down, but I’m not sure that I should touch the car yet, so I drop down onto the curb in front of my space. Without any sort of hesitation, Miranda sits down on my right side. A beat later, Annabelle sits on my other side. Nate moves to stand in front of me; clearly, his willingness to wait with me is not accompanied by a willingness to sit on a parking lot curb while wearing designer trousers. I offer them all a vague smile of appreciation, which fades to a smirk when I light up a cigarette and they all shift a little bit away from me, wrinkling their noses. Once it’s clear that I’m not going to throw a temper tantrum or do anything else interesting, most of the players who haven’t bothered to speak to me decide to head out. By the time the patrol car pulls into the lot, lights flashing but no siren wailing, the only people left are Nate, Annabelle, Miranda, Riley, and myself. Travis and Joss are here, but they’re not here—they have remained, probably at Travis’ misguided insistence, but they’re hovering halfway across the lot. He’s leaning against his car; she’s leaning against him. I’m not entirely sure when they decided to go public with their gross little relationship, but I’m guessing it happened sometime after I bitched them out for it during lunch last week. Regardless, it’s obnoxious; I’ve barely been able to go anywhere in the senior hallway without seeing them hanging all over each other. He walks her to class with an arm around her shoulders. She gives his hand a playful little tug every time they pass each other in the hall. They make out like, fucking constantly. Part of me is really glad that I was living in New York while Travis was dating Ben, if this is how oh-so-adorable he acts with the people he dates. A bigger part of me is just jealous and bitter that, despite dating him for half the fall semester last year, I never got the chance to date him, not like this. Not in public, where everyone can see, where all our friends and classmates have the privilege of being nauseated by it. The cop car pulls up next to the Testarossa, parks, and an officer gets out. “Garen Anderson?” “That’s me,” I say, stubbing out my cigarette on the bottom of my boot and standing up. The officer shakes my hand and says, “Hi, Garen. My name’s Officer Lowitz, I’m with the Lakewood PD. You want to tell me what happened?” I shrug. “I stay late after school every day except Friday. I’m in the school play—these guys are in drama club with me.” I gesture to the rest of the group. “Anyway, the car was like this when we came outside, but I don’t know how long it had been like that. It might’ve happened during the day, might’ve happened ten minutes ago. I couldn’t tell you.” “And none of you saw who did this?” Officer Lowitz asks. We all shake our heads. “Do any of your classmates have a problem with you? That is, is there a chance that this might have been random? Some kid just wanted to mess up a car, so he picked the one that stuck out the most—” “No,” I say, shaking my head. “There’s, um…” I sigh and gesture to the hood. “Whoever it is—” Jack fucking Thorne, I’d wager anything, “—wrote a bunch of stuff on it. They used my name, called me a fag, referenced some, uh… I don’t know, some bad stuff about my history. It was definitely directed at me. And it was at least two people,” I say. At Officer Lowitz’s questioning glance, I sigh and point to the little brother comment. “That one’s in a different hand than the rest of them.” His eyes narrow in on the words, but his voice is steady when he says, “Is there something I’m missing?” “It’s about me,” says a bland voice from behind me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m not going to turn around. I’m not going to look at him. Neither of us deserves that. But I can picture Travis shrugging as he says, “Garen and I used to go out, but after we broke up, my mom married his dad. They’re getting a divorce now, but we still get shit for it a lot.” “Oh,” Officer Lowitz says, clearly searching for an appropriate answer, but before he can process one, he freezes. After a moment, he turns to face me, eyes wide and says, “Just a minute now. You’re that Garen Anderson?” “Um. Yes?” I say. “Have we met before, or have I just finally reached that point in my life where the local authorities have started keeping track of who I put my dick into?” I turn to Riley, the nearest person to me, and add, “My mom always warned me this would happen. She’d say, ‘Garen Michael Anderson, if you don’t learn to keep it in your pants, there will be serious—’” “I was one of the officers handling the Walczyk case last spring,” Lowitz interrupts, thrusting his hand out to shake mine again. He is way too eager about this. I don’t feel like I can move, but I must be able to, because my hand is suddenly in his, and I’m letting him pump it up and down as he says, “Really, I’m glad to see you’ve recovered so well. That was the first domestic assault case I handled after joining the force, and man, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I saw your injuries, how much blood there was—I’m surprised you survived. You must be a real fighter, huh?” I force a smile, but my muscles are so strained, it must look like a grimace. “I guess so.” There are so many pairs of eyes on me right now. I can feel them burning on my skin. “Has the case come to trial yet?” Lowitz asks, ever so fucking casually, like this is obviously the only thing I’d want to discuss. I cross my arms over my chest. “No. There’s not going to be a trial. I, um… my mom’s my lawyer? It took some convincing, I guess, but she let me drop the charges against him.” Officer Lowitz’s excitement at getting a chance to meet the victim of his first big assault case dims a little. In fact, it sort of disappears altogether. His eyes rake over my face, my neck, any exposed bit of skin—at first, I’m sort of bewildered that he’s checking me out, but then I realize he’s not; he’s looking for scars. And I’m ashamed to admit that there are several, mostly scattered across my torso, my shoulders. The fingers on my right hand are the most noticeably disfigured—the backs of my knuckles have slightly dark, slightly raised slashes across them, the product of Dave stomping on my hand in combat boots. When I try to flatten my hand, my ring finger still looks a little bit crooked, but it hasn’t given me any trouble. I can still write, and play the guitar, and jerk off, or whatever. The only scar that really bothers me is from years ago—a thin, almost invisible line alone the right side of my nose. Dave had broken it during The Fight—the first one—and it had healed sort of… wrong? Crooked? Ugly? I’m not sure if the scar is from the punch he landed that was hard enough to break it, or if it’s leftover from the nosejob my parents let me get during the summer after sophomore year to return my face to what it had looked like before. Most people can’t even see the scar, but any time I look in the mirror, it’s the only thing I can look at. It’s pretty obvious that Officer Lowitz doesn’t notice it now. He does, however, say, “Is there any chance that he could have been the one to vandalize your vehicle?” I shake my head. He raises his eyebrows. Reluctantly, I explain, “I have a restraining order against him. He can’t call me, text me, email me, add me as a friend on any social networking sites, or come within a hundred feet of me, my school, or my house at any point during the next two and a half years. It’s in effect until my twenty-first birthday. Look, David’s a lot of things, but he’s not an idiot. He comes from an old money family, he’s a Patton Military Academy legacy kid, he goes to Yale—those things, that lifestyle… it all comes with certain expectations. He risked enough by dating some trashy little queer from Ohio in the first place, and getting arrested for assaulting said faggot? Didn’t exactly endear him to his parents, trust me. He’s not going to risk ruining the rest of his life just to piss me off.” “It’s still worth looking into,” says Travis’ stupid, stubborn voice from behind me. “No, it’s not worth looking into,” I say flatly, taking care to address the cop instead of my ex. “Whoever did this to my car did it because he wanted the repairs to cost as much as possible, but Dave knows that getting even this amount of damage fixed will barely put a dent in my monthly credit card allowance. When trust fund kids fight each other, they break each others’ bones, not each other’s shit, because physical possessions? Money? It all means nothing to us. I wouldn’t drive a fucking vintage Ferrari if I couldn’t afford to maintain it. Trashing my car isn’t Dave’s style. Besides, that—” I take a few steps closer to the car to point at the words on the hood, “—isn’t his handwriting, and this—” I wrap my knuckles against the little brother comment, “—isn’t something Dave would need to ask, because I already told him how my stepbrother is in bed.” That’s enough to make Joss turn around and stride back in the direction of Travis’ car. I sneer at her retreating back, and once she has settled herself into the passenger seat of his car and looked through the window again, she meets my eyes and sneers right back. Travis sighs, but he neither follows her nor speaks to me. Officer Lowitz clears his throat and says, “Alright, I’m going to call a tow truck to move this to a garage, because I can’t let you drive it anywhere without working lights and mirrors. Then, I’m going to take some pictures, fill out an incident report, that sort of thing. Can you get one of your friends here to give you a ride home?” They’re not my friends. They’re in the same club as me, sure, and they’re civil to me, but every time one of them meets my eyes, I can tell that they’re not my friends. I shake my head and say, “I’ll call somebody. It’s fine.” He nods and steps back towards his car. Miranda reaches out and tugs on my sleeve. “It’s fine, Garen. I can drive you home. You’ll need to give me directions, but—” “I’ll call somebody,” I repeat, extracting my sleeve from her grasp. She frowns at me and opens her mouth again, presumably to protest. I cut her off once more with, “Look, I appreciate that you guys decided to wait with me, but I can handle it, alright? I’m not actually friends with you guys. We put up with each other because we’ve got this stupid fucking play to put on. So, thank you, but you can leave. I’ll call one of my actual friends.” In a truly stunning display of the best timing ever, the display on my cell phone lights up at that moment. And thank god, because I really don’t want to have to look at the hurt expression on Miranda’s face anymore. “Hey, jackass,” Alex greets me when I finally answer. “Where the hell are you? We’ve been parked outside your house for half an hour. I thought you said you’d be home so we could play together before we head to the train station.” Fuck, the train station. I’m supposed to be using my now-fucked car to drive to Union Station to pick up Jamie, who has finally agreed to blow off his Thursday and Friday classes to come spend a few days in Lakewood. Perfect. I squeeze my eyes shut and drag my fingers through my hair, yanking a little on the strands to distract myself from how infuriated I am right now. “I’m still at school. And I need a ride. Can you come pick me up?” “Don’t you have your car?” he asks, and I can hear the frown in his voice. “If it’s a problem, I can try to get the cop to drive me home, but like… we know how well I do with people in positions of authority, you know? I’ll probably end up getting myself shot, and—” Alex cuts in, “Dude. Cop? What happened to your car?” “Trashed it,” I say flatly. “Are you okay?” he asks, and when I make a noise in the affirmative, he hesitates before asking, “Accident?” “Nope,” I say, letting the word fall from my lips with a small pop. “No, I am pretty certain that someone didn’t accidentally key my car, smash out the lights, dent the sides in, take off one of the mirrors, and write ‘have fun getting AIDS’ on the hood in permanent marker. Pretty sure that was all on purpose. Can you please come pick me up?” “Fuck,” Alex breathes, and I can hear him muttering something to Ben before he says to me, “Yeah, man, we’ll come pick you up now. Be there in ten.” I hang up without another word. The next ten minutes pass in relative silence; Miranda is the first to leave, probably still smarting from my rejection. Nate, the fifteen-year-old baby gay, is picked up by a minivan that I can only assume is being driven by his mom. Riley claps me on the shoulder and heads out with a murmur of sympathy. By the time the tow truck arrives, I’m alone with Officer Lowitz, Annabelle—who remains stubbornly seated on the curb—and Travis, who has spent the last ten minutes leaning against the nearest lamp post, watching me in silence. Joss is still waiting in his car, becoming steadily and obviously more pissed off. I don’t bother to make small talk with the guy driving the tow truck; he gives me a business card with the location of the garage he’ll be bringing it to, with instructions to call the next morning to work out what we’ll do next. He’s in the process of bringing my car up onto the lift when Alex’s silver Honda swings into the lot. I’m too busy scowling and shoving my backpack into the trunk to really notice that Travis has moved, but by the time I’ve flung myself into the backseat and opened my mouth to start in on my bitching, he has ducked down to speak to Ben through the passenger window. “Hi. Thanks for picking him up. Other people offered, but he was being a bitch about it.” “He’s like that,” Ben says dryly, waving me off when I slug him hard in the shoulder in response. “He wouldn’t even let you bring him home?” Travis shrugs. “He’s not talking to me anymore.” Alex twists around in his seat to ask me, “Why aren’t you talking to him anymore?” “I’m not talking to him because I don’t make a habit of talking to guys who think it’s cool to tell me they don’t want to be friends with me anymore when I’m blackout drunk, in the middle of a relapse. He started this, not me, but he’s spent the last week trying to make small talk with me,” I say. “So, I guess I’m not talking to him ‘cause he’s a fuckin’ tool.” Travis says, a shade too calmly, “No, he’s not talking to me because he’s been acting like a petulant child for weeks now.” “Maybe I’m not talking to you because you started fucking flirting with me the second I got out of rehab in August, and you started holding my hand at school, and you joined the goddamn stage crew so that you could spend more time with me, but then you started banging some girl you barely know, just because she was there. Maybe I’m not talking to you because you’re a fucking tease. Maybe I’m not talking to you because I thought you liked me, but you don’t, and I don’t know what to say to you anymore, okay?” I snap. Silence. I finally manage to force myself to look over at him. He’s just staring at me, like it hurts him that I’d actually acknowledge what a dickbag he’s been lately. I slump down in my seat and say, “Whatever, McCall. See you at tomorrow’s rehearsal. Have fun fucking your bitch of a girlfriend in the backseat of your car.” A muscle in his jaw twitches a bit, but then he’s making it so much worse, because he’s leaning back and saying, “Thanks. I will.” “Alex, if you don’t run over that asshole right now, this friendship is over.” “Alright, well, we’re going to head out now,” Ben says loudly over whatever snide retort Travis was planning to say. He smiles benignly at his ex-boyfriend and says, “I’ll text you later.” Travis stalks back to his car without even saying goodbye to the two people in this car he’s actually friends with, because he’s just the rudest. Alex shifts back into drive, but he’s not able to make it out of the parking lot quickly enough to prevent us all from seeing that, the second he’s in his car, Travis knots a hand in Josslyn’s hair and hauls her into a bruising kiss. Scowling, I lean forward to crank up the stereo and try to lose myself in the noise.

We actually manage to make it all the way to New Haven before Ben is unable to keep silent any longer. He punches the power button on the stereo, instantly cutting off the music, and turns around in his seat to stare at me with wide eyes. “Does he really have a girlfriend?” “I’m sorry, did you miss him sticking his tongue in her mouth in the parking lot? Because I didn’t,” I say. Ben’s teeth clamp down on his lower lip. I sigh and nod, turning to stare out the car window. “Yeah. He’s really got a girlfriend.” “Oh,” is all Ben says, and now I feel like an asshole. The truth is, sometimes I forget that I’m not the only guy who’s still trying to make himself let go of Travis McCall. And I know he won’t ask, so I force myself to offer, “Her name’s Joss Pryce. She’s playing lead in the play, they met at rehearsal a few weeks ago. They hooked up about two weeks ago. That—” I suck in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I saw them. Their first kiss? I saw it. That was, um… what made me freak out. The night I relapsed. That’s what prompted it.” Though he has to twist at an awkward angle to do it, Alex reaches back to squeeze my knee. I give him a weak, thankful smile in the rearview mirror before returning to staring out the window. And then, realizing where I am, I say, “Hang on, can you pull into this lot?” “What, this apartment complex?” Ben asks. “Yeah. Just for a minute, there’s something I wanna do,” I say. They’ve been my friends for too long to really care about questioning me, so they follow me easily when I direct Alex to a parking space and climb out of the car. Just inside the building, I thumb the intercom button, and after a moment, Stohler’s voice crackles from the speaker. “What?” “It’s Garen. Be nice and open the door, I need to whine,” I say. “Don’t you always?” she snipes, but there’s a loud buzz, and the door unlatches. I gesture for Ben and Alex to enter, and they do so without comment. I lead the way up to Stohler’s apartment—I’m still always a little surprised at myself for remembering which one it is. I’ve been over twice since we got coffee last Friday, and both times, I’ve felt like the place would be more familiar if I were drunk. Regardless, I find the right apartment and hammer on the door. When Stohler answers, her hair is tightly braided, she’s clutching a coffee mug the size of a mixing bowl, and she’s wearing nothing but a red lace bra and an unbuttoned pair of denim shorts. If she’s even remotely fazed by being topless in front of two dudes she’s never met before, she hides it well. That’s probably an occupational hazard of taking one’s clothes off for a living—lack of modesty. At least she has an excuse for it. I say, “That asshole at school, the one with the weird hate-boner for me? Jack? Keyed my car and smashed out all the lights.” She takes a long sip from her mug before saying, “I know a guy who’ll kneecap him for thirty bucks. And if violence isn’t your thing, I can set him up with this bitch I work with who’ll give him a wicked case of crabs.” “Both. I want both,” I say. “He keyed my Ferrari. I want him to get kneecapped while he’s fucking a chick with crabs, because I want him to spend the rest of his life associating orgasms with an itchy cock and the sensation of his patella shattering, so that every time he gets hard, he starts sobbing. Also, will you help me break into my shrink’s office so I can go through her files until I find a psychopath who’ll be glad to tie him to an electric fence and rip out his fingernails one by one and pierce his testicles with rusty fish hooks?” “Honey, you need to pay more attention to the stories I tell you about the guys who come into the club. I know like, four people who will do that just ‘cause they get off on it, and we won’t have to commit felony trespass to get their info. Hang on, I’ll get my phone,” she says. I follow her into the apartment, and only once we’re both polished off whatever coffee’s left in the pot does it occur to her to blink around at Alex and Ben and say, “Also, hi. I’m Stohler. You’re allowed to actually come into the apartment, if you want.” “Oh, right. These are my friends—” “All two of them?” “Fuck you, Stohls, I have four friends, counting you. You just have me.” She shrugs. “One friend and no taste. I knew there was a reason my parents were never proud of me.” “Maybe they’re not proud of you because you used your years of classical dance training to become a sex worker,” I suggest. We spend a solid minute kicking each other; I’m wearing combat boots and she’s barefoot, so I win pretty easily. I kick off my boots so it won’t hurt her too much when I stomp on her bare foot. “Anyway, if you’re done making it all about you, these are my friends. Short one’s Ben McCutcheon, tall one’s Alex Baker.” “It’s nice to meet you,” Ben says, stepping forward to shake her hand, a gesture that is then echoed by Alex. Stohler quirks an eyebrow at me, clearly her way of saying, Look at you, with your little gentlemen friends. I smirk back instead of saying, Right? I may be mostly friendless, but the dudes I do hang out with are totally rad. We are interrupted by the sudden appearance of one of her roommates, the girl with dyed red hair, who seems to have decided to travel from the living room to the kitchen expressly for the purpose of glaring at Stohler and saying, “Lindsey, the roommate agreement is really freaking clear. I don’t get why you refuse to obey it.” “Which part?” Stohler sighs. “The part about not having more than one guest over at a time,” the girl snaps. She pauses, gives Stohler a once-over, and says, “Also, the part about you not wearing your work clothes in the common areas. Like, sorry, but the rest of us don’t necessarily want to see your boobs hanging out all the time.” Stohler sets the now empty coffee mug in the sink and grabs two bottled waters from the fridge, passing one to me before she says, “First of all, these aren’t my work clothes. These are my ‘I’m getting ready for work’ clothes. My work clothes don’t involve pants, which you are both aware of and disgusted by, so don’t pretend. Second of all, that roommate agreement is bullshit, and you know it. You can’t just type up a list of things you don’t like about me and slide it under my door and expect me to give a single, solitary fuck about what you say I should or shouldn’t do. Third of all, I’m pretty sure that I’m way more offended by the fact that you’re wearing a t-shirt with a kitten on it than you are by the fact that I’m not wearing a shirt at all. And fourth of all, my quarter of the rent is paid for by my tits. Yours is paid for by your parents, but you don’t hear me asking you to keep them out of the apartment, do you?” “I just think it’s really disrespectful for you to—” “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I say, stripping off my jacket and flinging it at Stohler. She pulls it on, but leaves it hanging open; I roll my eyes at her, then step forward to yank the zipper halfway up, just enough to conceal most of her bra. We both make jazz hands at her torso, and I say, “Ta-da! She’s moderately dressed now. Can you go back to being a bitch in the other room, please? You do this every time I’m here.” “She does this every time I’m here,” Stohler corrects, though her roommate—fuck, what’s her name? I know I’ve met her before, but I can’t remember if she’s Meagan or Angie—storms back into the living room. Right, so that was Meagan; Angie’s the one who eye-fucks me constantly. Stohler shrugs at Alex and Ben and says, “My roommates are cunts.” “I have the same problem,” Alex says solemnly, and Ben punches him in the ribs. Stohler blinks at me, but very clearly does not say, Are they really not fucking? Or, at least, she’s not supposed to say it. But because she’s a life-ruiner, she waves a dismissive hand at them and says, “These are the ones from the chart, right?” “Chart?” Ben echoes, brow furrowed. “Stohler. I’m going to need you to switch yourself over to ‘silent’ mode, okay?” I say through gritted teeth. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she says, and god, no wonder we’ve hit it off so well. Clearly displeased with my attempts to control her, she crooks a finger at my friends and saunters off down the hall in the direction of her bedroom. They follow her; I trudge reluctantly after them. Stohler’s room is barely a room at all. It’s a nine-by-nine square, with just enough room for her bed, a medium-sized dresser, and the vanity that’s constantly scattered with dozens of tubes and jars of makeup. Her furniture is impersonal, probably because it was provided when she moved in, but the wallpaper is almost completely obscured by movie posters and concert tickets and programs from dance performances. Just to the left of the lightswitch, the Starbucks napkin is taped up. Stripping my jacket off again, Stohler gestures to the napkin. Alex ducks down to read it, then rounds on me. “Thank you, Garen. I was desperately hoping to find out that your newest hobby is hanging out in coffee shops, explaining the details of your friends’ personal lives to people they don’t know.” “But—” I pause, look from him to Stohler, and back again. But you should know Stohler, is what I want to say, because she is awesome, and she’s funny as hell, and you’re all so cool, and cool people should hang out together. I’m opening my mouth to try to explain this when Ben says, voice slow and careful, “Um. Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but… what the fuck is this?” His index finger is touching the line that connects Alex’s name to Jamie’s. Oh, shit. “That’s nothing,” I say sharply. “That was a mistake, I didn’t mean to—” “Muscle spasm,” Stohler says, taking a sip from her water bottle. “He wasn’t trying to draw that line at all.” “Yeah, I was trying to draw the line from Alex to Travis, but I forgot where I’d written Travis’ name, and just, you know, oops. It was an accident.” Alex levels a very unimpressed look at both of us, then turns to Ben, shrugs, and says, “Or, if these two are done being idiots and really terrible at lying, this could be the moment when I tell you that I’ve been sleeping with James Goldwyn for a few months now.” I’m expecting Ben to be shocked. I’m expecting him to be confused. I’m not, however, expecting him to be angry. He crosses his arms over his chest and says flatly, “Cool. So, for your next conquest, do you want a new list of guys who are complete assholes, or will you be working off of your own?” “Hey,” I say, tone sharp as glass. “Don’t talk about Jamie like—” “Really, Garen?” Ben says, rounding on me. “Do you want to know what the first words your best friend ever said to me were? He came up to me at your dad’s wedding reception and said, ‘Nice eyeliner, midget. Garen told me Freckles was bi, but I didn’t realize he was trying to find one person who could satisfy his desire to be with a man and a woman at the same time.’ He spent the next twenty minutes humming that fucking Killers song every time I was near him. That ‘somebody told me that you had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfriend’ thing. Every time we’re in the same room, he stands as close to me as humanly possible, just so that everyone will be amused by the fact that he’s like, ten inches taller than me. And he just—the fucking things he says. The comments he makes? He’s a preppy, arrogant, elitist asshole. He’s the kind of guy who used to beat the shit out of me in middle school, and if he wasn’t your best friend, he’d probably be one of the guys who treats you like shit now. So, please, Garen, tell me again how I can’t say anything bad about him.” I sit down on the edge of Stohler’s bed, but don’t say anything. Over the years, there have always been three groups of people who interact with Jamie and I. There are some people who love both of us. There are some people who love me, but despise him. And there are some people who hate me with a passion, but can’t get enough of him. Ben’s not the first person to tell me these things, and he probably won’t be the last, but… he’s also someone I don’t want to lose. He’s not Jamie, but he’s still important to me. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, but thankfully—strangely—Alex does. He sighs, grabs Ben’s wrist and says, “Look, I get it, alright? I kind of thought he was an ass when I first met him, and you’re right, the things he says to you aren’t fair. But he’s—I mean, I talk to him, too. It’s not like we only get in touch when we want to—” “Get in touch?” Stohler deadpans. Alex rolls his eyes at her, but gives a little nod of agreement before continuing, “He’s a cool guy, if you give him a chance. I guess he’s sort of like Garen, in that regard. They both take a little getting used to, but then you can’t help but like them.” I narrow my eyes at him. “And what exactly is it about me that takes ‘a little getting used to’?” “Wow, I don’t know, G,” he says. “The verbal porn you spew out at regular intervals? The way you lash out like a cranky toddler when you don’t get your way? Your tendency to go on raging drug binges and then attempt to distract us with sex?” “Well, from what I hear, his attempts have been pretty successful,” Stohler says, smiling slyly at Alex when he glares at her. I scowl and say, “Fine. Do I have any other huge character flaws you’d like to point out?” Ben, who has lost interest in most of the conversation and is now busying himself with examining the programs on the walls, says, “I mean, I wouldn’t say this is a ‘huge character flaw,’ but sometimes you wear your aviators when you’re getting head, and that’s kind of awful. I can’t tell if you’re looking at me or not, it makes me self-conscious.” He looks around at me and raises his eyebrows. “Also, we should get going. We’re going to be late.” I slip my phone from my pocket to check the time, then swear under my breath. Jamie’s train is supposed to be arriving in ten minutes, which is about how long it takes to walk there from here. Stohler leads us back out into the hall, glaring at Meagan and daring her to comment about the shirt that is once again missing. At the door, I turn back and say, “Hey.” “Hey what?” she says, cocking her head to the side. I gesture to Alex and Ben. “We’re going to a show downtown this Friday. If you’re not working, you should come with us. It’ll be fun. It’s a hardcore show with no seating, so you’ll get to see this one—” I jerk my head towards Ben, “—get into a fight with some metalhead a foot taller than him—” “That’s honestly happened every time we’ve gone out,” Alex admits. “Because people always pick fights with me,” Ben protests. “I get that I’m little, but that sure as shit doesn’t mean I’m going to just stand around and take it if half a dozen guys decide I’m that night’s punching bag. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean people can try to pick me up and force me to crowd-surf. There are basic, unspoken rules in the pit, and yes, I get angry when people disrespect me or those rules. So, yeah, if you spend the whole night stomping the back of my knee just to see if you can make me fall over, you don’t get to be surprised when I find you in the parking lot after the show and punch you in the mouth.” That’s actually a true story. About a week after I met him, Ben and I went to a show together, and some asshole kept calling him ‘emo kid’ and trying to wail on him all night. Every time I had tried to intervene, Ben had put himself between the guy and me. I’d figured he was trying to be a pacifist about it, right up until we got outside the venue, Ben had hunted down the guy, and said—direct quote--hey, ass clown, ready to have an emo kid beat the shit out of you? It took me, plus three of the other guy’s friends to pull him off, and I was so impressed I blew him twice, just to show my appreciation for the entertainment value. Now, I glance back at Stohler and add, “Plus, if hardcore’s not your thing, you can just hang in the back, get drunk, and desperately wish you were anywhere else. That’s what James is probably going to end up doing.” “Why, what kind of music does he listen to?” she asks. “Electropop, mostly,” Alex says flatly. “His iPod is mostly full of bands like 3OH!3, Cobra Starship—” “I don’t want to fucking talk about it,” I snap, stomping past him out of the apartment. Jamie’s iPod is the main reason I try to only hang out with musicians. I may not love Ben’s penchant for blasting post-hardcore at all hours of the day, and yeah, Alex has made me listen to way more Five Finger Death Punch than I care for, but at least they don’t make me want to puncture my eardrums just so I don’t have to put up with any more autotune. Over my shoulder, I say, “Whatever. If you’re not working Friday night, text me and come out with us. See you around.” She doesn’t actually say goodbye, just turns and walks back into her bedroom. The moment Alex has shut the door behind himself, he looks over at me, gnaws on his lip for a few seconds, and says, “She seems cool.” “She is,” I agree, “but I can tell from the look on your face that what you really meant was ‘she’s really hot.’” “Yeah, well, whatever,” Alex says, ducking his head to hide the flush creeping into his cheeks. Ben rolls his eyes and leads the way out into the parking lot, ordering us to walk to the station instead of wasting time and gas by trying to navigate the shitshow of New Haven drivers. I’m bouncing all the way to the train station, impatient to get there so I can finally see James again, outside of the dining room at the LRC. Ben threatens to shove me in front of a cab if I don’t calm down, but I can’t help it, I’m stupidly excited. It’s only been two weeks since I’ve seen him, but I want him to see how much better I am. I want him to see that I’m okay again, that I’m healthy. I want him to be proud of me again. When my eyes finally lock onto him, just inside Union Station, neither of us can help it; we both break into wide grins, and I burst through the station doors and attack him, flinging my arms around his neck and scrambling up onto his back so he can carry me outside to where my friends are standing, watching us with mild amusement. I press a kiss to the back of his neck and say, “How was the ride in?” “Fingered some girl who got on the Stamford stop. So, uneventful, I suppose.” Sensing my eagerness to escape his hands, he laughs and cranes an elbow back to dig it into my side. “Oh, get over it. They have a bathroom on the train, I washed my hands. I mean, really. I may be an insatiable pervert, but I’m still a gentleman.” He unhooks my legs from his elbows and swings me around so that I’m hanging off the front of him now, my legs around his waist and arms around his neck, his hands curved under my thighs to keep me up. He grins. “Miss me?” “Always,” I say, ducking in to kiss his forehead. He lets me clamber down out of his arms and drag him over to where Alex and Ben have remained. And—well, okay, Jamie likes to touch people but he mostly just likes to touch me. I’ve walked in on him screwing several different people, I’ve participated in many ill-advised threesomes with him, but still, I can’t help but feel a jolt of surprise when he greets Alex with a soft smile, and an even softer kiss. I can only assume that the hurried texts Alex was sending for most of the walk over here were to Jamie, alerting him to Ben’s new knowledge of their… whatever this is. Their mouths are still slightly touching when he murmurs, “Hey.” “Hey yourself,” Alex says, reaching up to tug a lock of Jamie’s hair. “You got back the grade for your paper today, right? How’d you do?” I blink. Jamie hadn’t mentioned a paper to me. But he grins at Alex and says, “I did wonderfully, of course. Wanna go back to your place so you can congratulate me?” Alex ducks his head and knocks his shoulder against Jamie’s. “Friday. You’re still coming out with us, right?” Jamie makes a face. “Ugh. Right. The concert.” “Dude, we’ve been over this,” I say. “Stadium tours? Shit on huge stages? Those are concerts. Small venues, unsigned bands, parking lots full of sketchy vans instead of tour buses? Those are shows. This is why you always stand out when we go to them.” “That, and the fact that you’re wearing Sperry Top-Siders,” Alex says. I look down. Jamie is indeed wearing the same brown leather boat shoes I’ve been mocking him for since we were fourteen. Alex looks back up at his face. “Please tell me you brought other shoes.” Jamie shrugs. “I like these ones. Besides, they match the rest of my clothes.” “If we get back to my house and I open up that bag and I see a single fucking J. Crew label, I’m torching them,” I say. “Then you might not want to open up my bag,” Jamie says, narrowing his eyes at me, “because I brought nothing but J. Crew, just because I knew you’d make some bitch comment like that. Wait, I’m sorry, that’s not true—I’m fairly certain that I brought a rugby shirt from Ralph Lauren.” I let my head roll fall forward to rest on his shoulder. “You’re fucking killing me here, man. Can we at least negotiate you wearing one of my black v-necks?” “It’s bad enough you want me to go to a concert—sorry, a show for a band I don’t listen to in a genre I don’t like—” “If you don’t want to go, I’m sure you could just hang around Garen’s house while the rest of us go out,” Ben interrupts brightly. Jamie squeezes his honey-brown eyes shut for a moment, very obviously praying for patience. Then he turns to Ben, exaggerates a smile and says, “Why hello there, Benjamin. God, I keep forgetting that when I come here, I need to drop my eye-line about a foot to make sure I’m including everyone in the conversation. Are you expecting a kiss hello, too?” “If you come any closer to me, I will punch you in the cock,” Ben warns. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, are you sure you can even reach anything above my knees?” Ben opens his mouth to retort, but I sling an arm around his shoulders and drag him away, back in the direction of Stohler’s building and the car. “Nope. I am not putting up with four fucking days of you two idiots sniping at each other. You’re going to be civil for the ten minutes it takes for us to get back to the car. You’re going to shut up about each other all day tomorrow. And when we go out on Friday, you’re going to behave, or Alex and I are going to murder you both. Deal?” They both roll their eyes at me and say nothing. I’m struck by the thought that they probably hate each other so much because their personalities are obnoxiously similar, in all the worst ways. Alex shoots me a long-suffering look and allows Jamie to tuck an arm around his waist. The walk back to Stohler’s building is silent. I turn in at the entrance of the lot, but Ben ducks out from under my arm and keeps walking, tossing over his shoulder, “Alex will drive you guys back to Lakewood. I’m going to head home.” “Alright,” I say, trying not to frown after him. “I’ll text you later.” “It was a pleasure seeing you again, Fun Size,” Jamie calls after him. Ben tosses him the finger without looking back. I turn around and scowl at Jamie. “Do you have to do that?” He shrugs. “We give each other shit. It’s not that big of a deal. He thinks I’m an ass, I think he’s a brat. That’s all there is to it.” That’s not all there is to it. I can tell that something else is going on, because neither of them is the type to hate another person without a decent reason. A reason more complicated than he wears too many polo shirts or he’s too short. There has to be a better excuse, I just don’t understand it. For now, I settle for rolling my eyes and heading back to the car, claiming shotgun without bothering to verbalize it. Jamie moves to get into the backseat, but before he can, I see Alex grab his wrist. Even through the closed car doors, I can hear him say, “Hey. You need to be nicer to Ben, alright? He’s my best friend, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated like shit, not by anyone. Think how you’d feel if somebody acted like a dick to Garen.” “Somebody did act like a dick to Garen,” Jamie mutters. “Ben acted like a dick to Garen, when he barely waited a few weeks to move in on his guy, and then didn’t even have the decency to call him and let him know. Maybe you can forgive that so easily, but it’s a bit more difficult for me, alright?” I tight my fingers on the edge of my seat. That’s what the hostility is about? Jamie’s bitter that Ben dated my ex? Outside the car, Alex says simply, “I know. I get it, Jamie, but that’s their issue to work out, okay? And if Garen can get over it, you need to, too. Because you can’t keep being an ass to Ben. It’s not okay.” I wait for it. I wait for the retort, the sneer, the I don’t take orders from the guys I bang, thanks for the input, though. It doesn’t come. What comes is a hesitation, a sigh, the words, “Alright, fine. I’ll play nice with the midg—with Ben. Sorry, sorry, that was a reflex. I’ll be nice to him, alright?” And then there’s silence, which can only be because they’re kissing.

17 days sober

They try. That’s actually the worst part—they both try their absolute hardest to get along, and they’re still complete dicks to each other. By the time I talk my dad into letting me borrow the second Benz for the night, drive Jamie and myself from Lakewood to New Haven, and lead the way up to the apartment, my best friend has managed to school his expression into a grimace that I think he hopes looks like a smile. He keeps muttering to himself, practicing saying something, and then, the second that Ben opens the door, he forces out, “Hi, Ben. How are you?” Alex has clearly treated his friend to the same scolding, because Ben is doing his best to turn his curled upper lip into a smile as he says, “I’m fine, thanks. Come on in.” “You guys are terrible at this. Maybe you should just not speak to each other at all,” I inform them, nudging past Ben and heading for the refrigerator to steal a Snapple. “Alex is in his room. He should be out in a few minutes, and then once Stohler gets here, we can go,” he says. He pauses, glances over at James, and says, “I think he’s smoking up, if you wanna do that. But if you go into his room, make sure you close the door after you, because I don’t really like the rest of the apartment to smell like weed.” Jamie nods, then looks over at me. His eyes are very obviously seeking… not permission, per se, but approval. He’s chasing the answer of whether or not it’s okay for him to still use drugs if I can’t. I roll my eyes and gesture down the hall, and he beams at me before darting off to join Alex. Ben has resumed his seat on the couch; there’s a small box open on the coffee table, along with a little mirror that stands up on three legs. I settle into the armchair to watch as Ben selects one of the sticks from the box, uncaps it, and very carefully begins to trace his waterline with it. He uses the very tip of his little finger to smudge it down into his lashes, reapplies it, then tosses the eyeliner onto the table. Next, he picks up a tiny jar of some weird, black… I don’t know. It’s like a cream, or a gel, or something. The point is, he dips the point of an angled brush into it and adds that to his upper lids, just along the base of his eyelashes. Once he’s satisfied with the amount, he drops the brush and uses the tips of his index fingers to smudge it all together, then uses a little triangular sponge-thing to wipe away any of the smears that don’t match what he usually does. It’s an interesting little process. I’ve never seen him putting on his eyeliner; I’ve only seen the final product, when his eyes are ringed in dark smudges that make his pale skin look like porcelain, and his irises exactly like the bright, clear blue I remember the Mediterranean Sea being when I spent the summer in France after my sophomore year. He is, for lack of a better word, beautiful. The door down the hall opens, and Jamie and Alex join us, the faint scent of pot lingering in Jamie’s cologne. Alex flops unceremoniously onto the couch, and Jamie clambers up onto my lap, snuggling his face into my shoulder. I smile and run the pad of my middle finger down the back of his neck, keeping my movements steady and feather-light. He lets out a sigh of contentment and squeezes my arm. Whenever he gets high, all he wants is to be touched—he wants fingertips stroking across his shoulderblades, palms rubbing against his chest, the tip of a tongue tracing his jawline. I brush a kiss to his neck, just below his ear, and say, “Feel good?” He makes an agreeable noise, then hesitantly asks, “Do you mind that I still smoke?” I shake my head no. Another hesitation. “You… can you? I’m not trying to push you to, obviously. I’m just wondering. Could you still smoke pot, if you wanted to?” I don’t want to smoke pot, and that’s how I know that I can smoke it. There’s no craving for it, no thirst to lose myself, not like there is with booze, or coke, or pills. I’m not sure how I can be so certain about this, but I can feel it in my bones. People tell me that there are some alcoholics who can eventually work their way up to being social drinkers. They can control themselves enough that they can have one glass of wine on holidays, and that will be enough for them. I know in my heart that that will never be me. I know it right down to my core—I will never be able to have a drink and not have it turn into something worse. But I know with that same certainty that, if I wanted to, I could go down the hall into Alex’s room, take a few hits off the pipe, get a little bit stoned, and be fine tomorrow. I wouldn’t need it. I shrug and say, “I could, if I wanted to.” In a display of nerdiness that seems to shock even former valedictorian Ben, I add, “When you snort cocaine, it takes like, half an hour to reach its full effect. When it does, it sort of makes all of your monoamine neurotransmitters start working overtime, all at once. Like, your neurons can’t reabsorb dopamine, which increases the amount of time that your brain is being flooded with it—that’s what controls your sense of pleasure. That’s how it gets you high, makes you feel good. And it also hits you with a fucking crazy amount of norepinephrine, which is what boosts your heart rate, makes you more alert, constricts your blood vessels, ups your blood sugar, dilates your bronchioles. All sorts of shit. And all those feelings? That’s what you’re chasing. That’s how you get addicted. I always thought I was doing coke because I needed it, but that’s not true. I wanted it. I could have lived without it—obviously, because that’s what I’m doing now—but doing it hit me with such awesome feelings that it seemed like the easiest, most legitimate way to feel good, and I convinced myself that I wouldn’t be able to ever have those feelings without it. All because it was hitting the right part of my brain. You wanna know what part of your brain pot affects?” “What part?” Jamie says. I press a kiss to the top of his head and say, “The cannabinoid receptors.” He snorts. “What, seriously?” I grin against his hair and say, “Seriously. Our brains have evolved to have a whole set of receptors that are specifically designed to react with THC. I mean, you can get the satisfaction elsewhere. There are chemicals in your brain that naturally activate it, so like, nobody needs pot. But my point is, your body just doesn’t react the same way to pot as it does to coke. All the things that turned me on about—behave yourself,” I scold, slapping his hand away when it starts to creep up my thigh. “I can’t help it,” he says. “It turns me one when you say something turns you on.” “You’re ridiculous,” I say, lacing my fingers with his to prevent him from making another grab for my dick. Part of me wonders if Alex is going to get pissed at me, if he’s going to get jealous, but when I look up, Alex isn’t really watching us. He’s making periodic glances, frowning, but for the most part, his eyes are fixed on Ben. Like he’s trying to figure out why, if I can be like this with my best friend, he isn’t allowed to be like this with his. I clear my throat. “Anyway, yeah. What turned me on about coke isn’t something I can get from pot. I can’t chase those same feelings. I’m no more likely to develop a weed habit than I am to develop a habit of like, eating cake, or jerking off, or anything else that feels pretty rad.” Over on the couch, Ben cocks his head to the side and says, “Have you always known all this stuff?” I shake my head, then shrug and admit, “I’ve been doing a lot of reading since I left rehab this last time. You know, skipping over the usual AA and NA surface reading—we admit that we are powerless over our whatever—and going for stuff that might actually help me. I don’t like being told what to do, especially if I don’t know why I’m being told to do it. So, I figure I can’t expect to get better unless I know for sure what made me fucked up in the first place.” If there’s any right answer, that must be it. A wide, warm smile stretches across Ben’s face. Maybe it’s because he’s glad I’m really trying this time; maybe he’s just really excited to hear that books are my solution to this, just like they’d be his. Either way, he looks like he’s happy for me. He looks like he’s proud of me. It takes me a moment to realize that Jamie is watching Ben, too, but then he sighs, leans back against the arm of the chair, and says, “Hey. Mayor of Munchkinland. Get over here and make me look pretty.” “Excuse me?” Ben says, but then he pauses, presumably because he’s noticed, like I have, that James has snatched up one of the eyeliner pencils from the coffee table and is twirling it between his long fingers. “Come on,” he says. “You idiots have made it abundantly clear that my particular sense of style won’t exactly blend in, so help me out. Get over here and paint me up like a trashy rocker boy.” Though Ben rolls his eyes, he rolls to his feet and comes over to us, bracing one knee against the arm of the chair and plucking the eyeliner from Jamie’s fingers. He makes a vague crooking gestures with his finger. “Sit up, look up, and don’t move.” Jamie obeys, and Ben presses a thumb to his cheek, just below his eye, pulling his lower lid down just enough to darken up the waterline. He stops almost immediately, slaps Jamie lightly across the face, and says, “Stop fucking blinking.” “It feels funny and kind of painful,” Jamie whines. Ben rolls his eyes. “Dude, I do this to myself every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.” “Your judgment of me should not be influenced by the fact that you’re a filthy little painslut who likes stabbing himself in the eye every morning,” Jamie says. Ben quirks an eyebrow. Jamie side-eyes me and says, “Though, to be fair, I was informed of your tendencies a while ago—” “Feel free to use that to gouge his eyes out,” I say, waving a hand at the eyeliner. But Ben completes his task without incident, and by the time he is stepping back and capping the pencil, the intercom at the front door is ringing. Alex goes to buzz Stohler in, and when she enters the apartment a minute later, she is wearing motorcycle boots, the same denim jeans as yesterday, and a tight black beater that has been sliced in half so that most of her perfectly flat stomach is exposed. Her hair is set into the same wild waves she wears to work, and she’s wearing more black eyeliner than Ben and James combined. She strides into the living room and says, “Please tell me that at least one of you queers is planning to drink with me tonight, ‘cause my roommates are pissing me right the fuck off today, so all I wanna do is go to this show, get completely wasted, fight somebody, and go home with a random.” “I’ll be drinking with you tonight,” Jamie says, launching himself off my lap. “I’m also technically a random, and I’d be more than happy to offer my services in the area of stress-relieving sexual congress.” “I like this one,” Stohler decides, then she jerks her chin at Alex. “You guys have any booze around here? I wanna do shots before we go.” The three of them make their way to the kitchen, where I can overhear her saying, “I’m Stohler, by the way.” “James Goldwyn. Pleasure to meet you, Stohler. You’re gorgeous.” “Likewise.” If the two of them don’t fuck by the end of the night, I’ll be genuinely surprised. I seem to be the lone exception to Jamie’s type, which tends to be tall, skinny, and blond—case and point, Alex. And now, Stohler. Actually, the most likely scenario is that Jamie will attempt to initiate a threesome, which is just weird. I wrinkle my nose and stand up so that I can fling an arm around Ben’s shoulders. “I hope you’re ready for a fun night of trying to stop our drunk friends from fighting anyone who comes near them.” “I can’t wait,” he says dryly. “Your car or mine?” “Yours. Dad doesn’t want me to drive the Mercedes any more than necessary,” I say. Probably because he lives in terror of this car being trashed just like the Ferrari was. Once the other have had the chance to take a few shots each, we make our way down to the parking lot. Alex attempts to call shotgun, but I snort and shove him towards the backseat. “Fuck that. You idiots are all riding in the back. Ben and I are going to need to stick together tonight, if we’re going to get through this with our sanity.” But it doesn’t really end up being that bad. We manage to find a meter fairly close to the venue where the show is being hosted, and the line outside isn’t too long. It’s an eighteen-plus show, and the guy at the door spends a solid two minutes examining Ben’s driver’s license, which sends Jamie into a fit of giggles that he tries to smother in the front of Alex’s t-shirt. By the time the guy allows us inside with a reluctant, “Alright, then,” Ben is scowling and Jamie has completely lost it. I punch Stohler’s shoulder and say, “Go take that loser up to the bar and get him a beer. He needs to be elsewhere for a little while. We’ll probably find you in the pit, but if we don’t, we’ll meet back at the car after the show’s over.” She grabs both of her drinking companions and speeds off in search of alcohol. I hook a finger through one of Ben’s belt loops and drag him out into the pit on the floor. We slip easily into the crowd but remain towards the back for now, neither of us willing to be the kind of douchebag who shows up minutes before the music starts and then shoves his way to the front of the crowd. People like that kill shows. The music starts up, and I come alive. I don’t think I even know the band. I tend not to, at smaller venues like this—I know the place, I might be vaguely familiar with some of the people, but most of these bands haven’t made it yet. Truthfully, most of them won’t. There are three bands up tonight, and only one of them is good. The first sort of half-asses their instruments and tries to make up for it with a lot of screeching. They suck, but that’s not the point. The point is the fucking vibe, the energy, the feeling I get, and the pulsing in my soul when I know that all the other people in this room are here for the same reason as me. They love sound. They love music, and they want to be a part of something, anything. A part of this night. Halfway through the second band’s set, some bearded asshole near us suddenly attempts to start a mosh, but without any regard to typical mosh etiquette. He’s head-banging and kicking his feet around and thrashing and swingings his arms like a goddamn windmill, hands balled up into fists. One of those fists comes around and cracks across Ben’s jaw. I’m on the guy in an instant, grabbing the front of his t-shirt and shaking him hard enough to stun him into stopping his thrashing. I give him another shake, just to make sure he’s paying attention, and snarl, “Knock it the fuck off, man. You’re being a dick, you’re gonna fucking hurt somebody, and if you touch my friend again, I’ll beat the shit out of you. Clear?” Ben grabs my arm and yanks me off the guy. “G, it’s cool. Stop.” I catch his face between my hands so that I can examine him, but he doesn’t seem to be bleeding. His lip is a little bit swollen, but the bruise that will come from it will fade in a few days. I release him and turn my focus back to the guy. “Garen,” Ben says sharply, curving a hand over the back of my neck and forcing me to look at him instead of the bearded asshole. “I’m fine. It was an accident, alright? It’s a fucking pit, of course I’m gonna get smacked around a little. That’s why I like hardcore shows. Just calm down.” I force a nod, but not without sneaking another glance at the other guy. Maybe I can dig an elbow into his ribs or something, when no one’s looking. Ben, however, seems to realize my plan, because he remains between the guy and me for the rest of the show, an arm wound around my waist or a hand braced between my shoulder blades. Always some sort of physical contact to keep me in line. When the show finally ends, I have half a mind to follow the ass out to the parking lot, but Ben still hasn’t released me. He tangles his fingers in mine and drags me back out of the pit the second the venue lights come back on. “Have you seen the others at all tonight?” “Not since we came in, no,” I say. We check the bar for them, but they’re not there. We debate checking out front, near the merch tables, but the odds of any of them deciding to drop money on burned CDs of mediocre bands are kind of slim. Eventually, we settle for heading back to the car, which is obviously what we should’ve done in the first place, because that’s where Alex and Jamie are waiting. They’re joking around with each other—both of them are completely hammered—and Jamie has a lit joint pinched between his fingers. He takes a long hit from it, holds it for a minute, then beckons Alex closer. Al crowds him up against the car and sucks the smoke from between Jamie’s slightly parted lips. By the time all of the smoke has made its way from one set of lungs to the other, they’re kissing yet again. I light myself a cigarette, dart up to them and tap Jamie on the shoulder, since he’s the one who can speak most easily right now. “Where’s Stohler?” Jamie leans away from Alex’s mouth and says, “She’s across the lot with some guy I think she might want to fuck. And when I say ‘I think she might want to,’ what I really mean is that she said—this is a direct quote, mind you--If this guy can shut up and do what I say, I might be willing to give him the single greatest night of his pathetic, meaningless life.” “There’s a possibility that Stohler has some control issues when it comes to her gentleman callers,” I say mildly. “When it comes to fucking, everyone has control issues,” Ben says. “Some people need all the power, others need to give up all the power.” I suck my cigarette and say, “Which kind are you?” He smiles wryly and says, “You know exactly which kind I am.” The second the words leave his mouth, I’m brushed by the memories of last fall, of having him spread out on his bed, desperate and aching. Of dragging him into an empty stairwell at school one afternoon, after the last bell, bending him over the banister, pinning his wrists together in the small of his back, fucking him until he could barely stay on his feet. And his words, his begging—god, the things he used to say. Please, Garen, I need it, fuck me, I need you in me, harder, make it hurt, scratch me, harder harder harder. I lick my lips and say, a little hoarsely, “Yeah. I remember.” He lets his head roll back against the car, but doesn’t shift his eyes from mine. I’m overcome with such a sudden urge to touch him that I’m kind of surprised I don’t just reach for his belt here and now. Instead, I break our eye contact and exhale hard, looking around and announcing, “I’m going to go grab Stohler and see if she wants to head out.” “Yeah,” Ben says after a beat. He nods once, then moves towards the front of the car without comment. It only takes a minute for me to find Stohler. She’s halfway across the parking lot, smirking at some guy with tattoo sleeves. He seems to be trying to flirt with her, but she’s obviously only half listening. “Hey, Stohls,” I call, and she glances over at me, eyebrow arched. “You coming?” She strides across the space between us and says, “I’m going to go home with, um—fuck, I’m not even going to pretend to remember his name. Whatever, that guy.” She points back at the tattooed guy. “He says I can spend the night at his place and he’ll give me a ride home in the morning, but I don’t really do slumber parties. So, I’ll get a cab home later. You guys have a good night, okay?” “Okay,” I say, staring past her at the guy. He’s looking back at me, but I don’t blink. I’m trying to communicate, mostly through the tension in my jaw, that I will find him and kill him if he doesn’t treat my slutty little friend like she’s a lady. After a moment, he looks away almost sheepishly. I turn my attention back to Stohler and loop an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to my chest and saying, “Text me when you get home so I know you’re not dead in a back alley somewhere, alright?” For a very long moment, she doesn’t move. Finally, she raises a hand and carefully presses it to my back, like she’s not sure what the proper procedure is for something as simple as a hug. “Alright.” “Cool. Now go wreck that guy,” I say. She pulls away from me with a smirk and saunters back across the lot to her future bedfellow. I head over to where the others are waiting by Ben’s car. He tosses me the keys, which is a pleasant surprise, and jerks his head towards where Stohler has disappeared. I shrug and say, “She’s gonna go get laid. She said she’ll text me later. Let’s head out.” Jamie and Alex are currently locked into a kiss goodbye that involves way more tongue than is probably necessary for a standard farewell. Ben cocks his head to the side, watching them. “Are they too drunk to realize that they don’t actually need to say ‘goodnight’ yet? They’re getting into the same car. We’re all headed back to the same building.” “I kind of gave up on trying to find logic in whatever’s going on with them a while ago,” I admit. Then, slightly louder, I say, “James. Come on. Get in the fucking car.” “Alright, alright,” Jamie grumbles at me. His scowl falls immediately into an easy smile as he turns to face Alex again. “I’ll call you in the morning. You’re going to let me take you to lunch.” I try to steer him away with a hand to his shoulder, but Alex refuses to release his wrist. “No, don’t go. It’s still early, don’t go.” “Garen’s making me,” Jamie protests. “Garen’s a dick,” Alex argues back, and what the fuck, Garen’s standing right here. Before I can point that out, Alex tugs Jamie closer, out of my reach. “Come home with me.” Jamie’s face breaks into a dumb little smile again. “You want me to?” “Yeah,” Alex says. “I want to hang out with you.” Jamie laughs and ducks in to nuzzle Alex’s jaw with his nose. “You don’t wanna hang out with me, you little liar. You want to have sex with me.” “I can’t do both?” I roll my eyes and turn around, slinging an arm over Ben’s shoulders and announcing, “Fine, whatever. We’ll go back to the apartment so you two can bang. But I’m using your xbox while you’re doing it, and we’re not staying the night.” “You’re totally staying the night,” Alex reassures Jamie in what I’m sure he drunkenly thinks is a whisper. We make our way back to the car, where Jamie drags Alex into the backseat with him; they’re making out before I’ve even turned on the engine. Ben and I exchange grimaces but remain silent. At least, we remain silent until halfway through the drive back to the apartment, when we both hear the unmistakable scratch of a zipper being lowered. “No,” Ben says forcefully, clapping his hands over his ears. “What the fuck, no. Whichever one of you is undressing, knock that off right now." They are very enthusiastically ignoring us, and a few seconds later, I hear a faint moan. Considering I've had sex with everyone in this car, I can tell the noise is coming from Alex. Still, I chance a glance in the rear view mirror. Alex's head is tossed back against the headrest, and Jamie is... nowhere in sight. Because I don't want to be the only one experiencing this, I reach over, pry one of Ben's hands from his ear, and inform him, "My best friend is blowing your best friend right now, in the backseat. Like, a foot away from us. Awkward, right?" "I'm going to fucking kill myself," Ben mutters. "Don't you dare. I don't want to be left alone with those two," I say. "Just drive faster," Ben says. There's a lewd, wet popping sound as Jamie pulls his mouth off Alex's piece just long enough to say, "McCutcheon, can't you give G some road head so you'll both be too busy to keep bitching?"

I truly appreciate how much effort it is taking for Ben to keep silent, so I turn on the stereo to drown out the slick sound of Jamie's mouth on Alex. As I'm turning into the lot of the apartment building, Alex gives a slightly broken moan, and Ben begins banging his head rhythmically against the window. Out of pure instinct, I reach over, knot my fingers in his hair, and yank him away from the glass. Barely audible over the music, Ben chokes out a soft groan of his own. Fuck, the hair-pulling. That's—god, I'd forgotten. In an instant, we've both sunk back into that same heady tension from outside the venue. My hand is still tangled in his hair, still pulling it taught, and I shift so that I can run my thumb across the shell of his ear. He's fucking shaking. I pull into the first parking space I see, release Ben and the wheel at the same time, and cut the engine. "Okay then! Alex, put it back in your pants. It's time to go up to the apartment." "W-We'll be along in a minute, you guys go ahead," Alex says. "I can't lock the car if you guys are still in it," I say through gritted teeth. "Just leave me the keys, I'll lock it." Ben is already out of the car, already striding towards the front door of the building. He doesn't seem inclined to hang around and hold it open for me, and I'd really rather not wait until he gets all the way up to the apartment to buzz me in. Not giving the slightest fuck how inappropriate this is, I twist around in my seat, haul Jamie off by the collar of his shirt, and tuck Alex's rock hard, spit-slicked cock back into his jeans. They both stare at me, two sets of comically widened brown eyes, and I snap, "Guys, it's been inside of me. I really don't think you should seem so shocked at me touching it. Now zip up, get out, and come inside, because it's late, and I've been awake for almost twenty-four hours now, and I was totally serious about us not staying over, so I sort of need you to both just get into the building and blow your loads so I can go home. Okay?" I don't wait for a response, and I only make it halfway across the parking lot before they both come booking it after me. I raise the key fob and press the button to lock the doors of Ben's car, then roll my eyes as the two of them barrel into the building, almost crashing into Ben, who is leaning against the wall, his foot wedged between the door and its frame so that I won't be locked out. When he sees me closing in, he kicks the door wider and heads inside, leaving me to catch the door and follow him up. By the time we actually enter the apartment—the door of which has been oh so thoughtfully left ajar for us—Alex and Jamie have already locked themselves in Alex's room. Ben sucks in a very unsteady breath, drops down onto the couch, and prompts, "Call of Duty?"No, I want to fucking touch you, I think. But for probably the first time in my life, I don't know how to verbalize it. I don't know how to tell him, I need you to get naked right now, and I need to fuck you, but I also need you to let me have all of the control, all of the power, and I need you to let me do this my way and at my own pace, and I will hurt you like you need me to, but only if you fucking swear you won't try to hurt me back. So, instead, I say, "Can we do Gears of War instead? I really like the chainsaw bayonet on the machine gun." He laughs and gestures to the console. "Far be it from me to stop you from working out your rage issues." We play in companionable silence for about twenty minutes, and then, from down the hall— "Fuck, harder." "Oh, fantastic," I say dryly. It's not like this is the first time I've heard Jamie fooling around with someone. I mean, he has gone to town on people while I've been in the same dorm room as him, and it's never really bothered me. But those people weren't my good friends. Those people hadn't fucked me just a few weeks before. I grab the remote off the coffee table and raise the volume a few clicks. Ben revs the chainsaw bayonet onscreen, which helps for a few seconds, but then the revving is over and we can totally still hear Alex groaning out, "God, you feel so good." "Jesus Christ," Ben says, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "I had assumed that living in a two-bedroom apartment instead of living in a dorm room would mean there'd be more of a barrier between me and my roommate's sex noises." "I had assumed that not being Jamie's roommate anymore would put more of a barrier between me and his sex noises," I say. Ben sighs. "Do you want to go to my room?" "Dude, that's the worst attempt at a solution I've ever heard," I say. "Your room is closer to the—" "My neighbor on that side—" he points to the wall behind us, "—is probably asleep and is definitely a bitch, so I can't turn the volume up on the game. But my room is right in the middle of the apartment, so I don't really have to worry about anyone but Alex being bothered by noise. If we go there, we can turn on music." "Or I could just fuck you until we both come so hard we stop being able to process sound anyway," I say absently. A few seconds later, his character dies on-screen, without him doing anything to try to prevent it. I look around, and only then do I realize that he's just holding the controller limply, staring at me. Now is probably the moment that I should be playing the comment off as a joke, nudging his shoulder with mine and saying, I'm just screwing with you, man. But then he switches the controller off, bites down hard on his lower lip, and says, voice neutral but a little bit lower than normal, "That's definitely an option." All I want to do right now is haul him to his feet and drag him down the hall, pin him to the door and fuck him mercilessly, but it's just— what if I can't? What if he, Christ, what if it's just like it was with that random in New York? What if he's just trying to get me to fuck him harder, but he grabs my hips, and I can't help but remember how things were with Dave, and I freak out? I've fucked Ben before, I know how rough he likes sex to be, and I can't do that. The feeling of his hands grabbing at me, of his nails digging into my back. It's not something I can handle right now. But then he licks his lips, and I can't stop myself from staring at his mouth and thinking, it's worth a try. "The thing is, I have this problem," I say hoarsely. He doesn't move, so I continue, "For the past few months--since I got out of the hospital, I guess? I’ve had some... issues with being touched. Not all the time, not everywhere, but, you know, if somebody starts to get rough with me, or if somebody touches my hips... if I feel like I'm not the one who's in charge of what's happening, I kind of freak out. And like, I'll have a panic attack, I guess." I still haven't looked away from his mouth, but I'm sure his eyes must be widening. "It's not like I can't get off, because I can. But if--if we do this, if we fuck you, I need to know that you're going to let me have control. I need you to do what I say, how I say it, when I say it, and if--look, I might need to stop, is what I'm trying to say. And if things get too heavy, I need to know that you won't, you know. Make me keep going. If I want to stop. Or if I say no." "G," he says softly, "what the fuck, of course. If you want to stop, of course I'm not going to make you keep going. If you don't want to do this—" "I want to do this," I interrupt, dragging both hands through my hair and lacing my fingers together behind my head. It’s true—he's still wearing his clothes from the show, his skintight jeans and half-unzipped hoodie. His hair is messy, his eyeliner is smeared, his lip is still slightly swollen from getting smacked in the face while we were in the pit. I rake my eyes over his body and can't stop myself from practically groaning as I say, "Fuck, you have no idea how much I want to do this. But it's just, you need to tell me that you're okay with having it be like that." "Like—" "You need to tell me that you're willing to just fucking take it," I say. He doesn't actually say it. He doesn't have to, because my words tear a strangled gasp from his throat, and he doesn't need to say anything, because it's fucking on. I seize the front of his hoodie and drag him to his feet, and then we're both sprinting down the hall towards his bedroom, tripping over each other and almost running into walls. Once inside the room, he slams the door shut and locks it, and I stride over to his desk to set his iTunes to shuffle. The second the music starts roaring out of the speakers, I turn back to face him. He's leaning against the closed door, already hardening in his skinny jeans, waiting for me to make the first move.

He only has to wait about two seconds, and then I'm pressing against him, pinning him in place with my hips and catching his face between my hands. We're so close that my nose is nudging his a little as I say quietly, "You sure?" He nods just once. "You?" "Fuck yes." The sound he makes when I kiss him is nothing short of obscene. Only then do I realize that he’s probably more starved for a proper touch than I am. Has he slept with anyone since Travis? God, has he even kissed anyone since Travis? When did they stop? Has it been months? I slot one of my legs between his and rock forward to press my thigh against his groin. He’s already half-hard; I can feel the line of him even through both our jeans. One of his hands rises from the door handle and moves towards my waist, only to fall hesitantly and uselessly back to his side. I frown down at it and say, “Is it okay if I touch you?” “I want you to touch me,” he says around a breath of a laugh. “I just won’t… you need to tell me what to do.” I sincerely hope that, even if it’s dark, he can still see me raise my eyebrows at him. “Ben, it’s real cute that you want to indulge my ‘blushing virgin’ kink, but I’ve seen the way you take a dicking. I know—” “You need to tell me what to do so that I don’t freak you out,” he interrupts. I go still, and he arches up against my thigh once more, hands remaining resolutely at his sides. “Garen, I’ll do any—whatever you want me to do, but you need to tell me. That’s the whole point of this. If we start screwing around, and I do something you can’t handle, and you end up freaking out, that’s going to leave both of us upset and with serious blue balls. So, I need you to tell me what the boundaries are. What do you want me to do? What do you not want me to do?” It’s exactly the set of questions I know I need to be asked, but my jaw is working overtime to clamp shut so that I can’t get the words out. There’s a flush of heat creeping up my neck—I never wanted to be that guy, the one who has to have his bedfellows quiz him about every touch. The guy who needs to be coddled. The guy who actually has boundaries, let alone ones he needs to enforce. It was never supposed to be this difficult to get off properly. I lick my lips and open my mouth to speak, but language fails me, and I end up sighing instead. Ben pinches my forearm lightly and says, “Come on, G. Use some words.” “I need—” I pause, surprised that any words are even coming to me now. But they feel like they’re a good assessment of my current state of mind, so I continue, “I need you to not be too delicate with me, okay? I still want you to touch me, I still want to feel it, but I also… need you to kind of keep your hands above the waist for right now, alright? Later, you can do more than that, but for right now, you sort of need to just make out with me and let me grope you a bit and possibly accept a blowjob sometime within the next ten minutes.” “One day, the Catholic Church will declare me a saint for my martyrdom,” Ben says, catching my face between his palms. “Obviously,” I agree, and he pulls me into a kiss, finally responding the way I want him to. Fucking hell—I’d forgotten how fantastic his full, soft lips feel against mine. Usually, I have moves. Usually, I have fantastic, filthy lines that get me laid like sex is going out of style, but I’m really turned on, and it’s been so long since it’s felt like this, that what comes out instead is, “If you don’t take your clothes off right now, I’m going to kill myself.” Ben snorts, and I can feel myself turning red, but still, he toes off his red Chucks and reaches for the buckle of his belt. I step back just far enough to kick off my boots and strip off my t-shirt, my jeans. As always, Ben’s hoodie is the last thing to be removed, and as always, he ducks his head to avoid my gaze once the black fabric has slipped far enough down his arms to expose the mess of criss-crossed scars that line his left arm. There are so many more than the last time we slept together. They go so much higher; no longer content to make periodic digs into the delicate skin of his wrists, he has taken to carving deep lines up his forearms, above the bend in his arm, over his bicep. They’re recent. They’re new. I dig my fingers into his waist and push him back onto his bed, spreading him out and settling myself on top of him. He arches up to kiss me, but I duck down and press my lips to his shoulder instead. He shudders as I trail rough, open-mouthed kisses down the length of his arm, occasionally letting my tongue dart out to traces the older, deeper scars. When I reach his wrist, I press one last kiss to his palm, then grab both his hands and lean forward to raise them above his head. I’m straddling the tops of his thighs, and with me stretched out at this angle, our dicks are both pinned between our stomachs. I take a moment to appreciate the friction of that, but then I overlap his hands and murmur against his jaw, “I want you to keep your wrists crossed over your head, like this. Can you do that for me?” “Yeah, whatever you want,” he says, sinking obediently into the pose I have outlined. I reward him, first with a kiss, and then by sliding back down his body and taking him into my mouth deeply enough that my nose brushes the trail of hair that leads down from his navel. He’s unable to bit back a cry at that, and if my mouth weren’t full of dick right now, I’d probably be grinning. Truth be told, I show off a little. There are few things I do as well as I give head, and it’s so good to get a chance to take my time, to feel his head hitting the back of my throat, then to pull off and work my tongue against his shaft, or the vein on the underside of his cock. And god, he’s so fucking responsive. I glance up through my eyelashes to watch him, to make sure he’s keeping his wrists crossed over his head like I asked him to. His hands are opening and closing almost compulsively, these little twitches to his fists that show just how much effort it’s taking him to keep his arms up. He’s lifting his head slightly to stare down at me, lip caught between his teeth. I sink to take him a little bit deeper, and his head drops back onto the pillows. “Garen, I’m going to—” I pull off with a pop and sit back on my heels, folding my hands in my lap. “No, you’re not.” “Fuck, G. Please.” “No,” I repeat. It’s a test—he should realize it’s a test—to make sure that he listens to me when I tell him no. That’s the only way this whole arrangement can work. I can’t do any of this, not unless I’m one hundred percent positive I can trust him not to just knot his fingers in my hair and force my head back down anyway. He closes his eyes and shifts so that his forearms are covering his face, but he doesn’t uncross his wrists. He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t jerk his hips upward again. He just inhales and exhales slowly, returns his hands to their previous position near the headboard, and says, “Okay.” “Okay,” I echo. “Good answer. Pick something else you want me to do to you.” “Will you fuck me?” he asks, turning wild eyes back to my face. I grin and shake my head. “Not yet.” I’m not sure I could, even if I wanted to. Obviously I’m hard as hell, but still… it’s been so fucking long since I’ve been able to top anyone and actually have an orgasm. After months of giving blowjobs and bottoming, the memories of fucking Travis last January are so distant that they might as well not have happened. I duck down and scrape my teeth over Ben’s hipbone before whispering, “Pick something else.” He makes a guttural noise and says, “That. I pick that, I want you to bite me again.” The request is unexpected and weird and sexy, and I bite down hard on his upper thigh. He bucks up against my mouth, his head thrown back and mouth open, lips trembling. I fucking lose it. The next ten minutes at least are spent with my hands holding him in place as I suck bruises and bite marks into all of his exposed skin. By the time I’m done, he’s covered in them—his hips, his stomach, his chest, his shoulders. Halfway through my creation of a third mark on his neck, he cranes his head to get his mouth on mine. I roll off of him, dragging him with me so that we’re both lying on our sides, bodies flush against each other. I steal a few harsh, close-mouthed kisses from him, then say, “I want you to put your mouth on me.” “You want me to suck your cock?” he whispers, the hottest little confirmation I’ve ever heard. He’s already mouthing down my chest, teeth scraping over one of my nipples, tongue tracing my pecs, but he seems reluctant to go any lower until I’ve given him some sort of official go-ahead. He says, “Is that okay?” “‘Is that okay,’ what the fuck. Yes, it’s okay,” I’m sort of babbling as I roll to settle properly onto my back. The edge of his mouth quirks up into a little half-smile, and then he’s settling himself between my knees and taking my dick in his mouth. For half a second, I think I’ve actually passed out, because it’s been so long since anyone has done this for me, and I had never thought I’d forget how good getting my dick sucked feels, but apparently I did, because the feel of his tongue against me is unbelievable. But he’s only been at it a few minutes before-- On the nightstand, my cell phone starts scratching out, “bang bang, we’re beautiful and dirty rich (dirty dirty rich dirty dirty rich beautiful)—”

Ben leans back, staring up at me. “I swear to god, I’m done sucking your dick if you tell me that you actually have Lady Gaga as your ring—”

“It’s not my regular ringtone, it’s just a joke for Jamie, shut the fuck up and keep sucking me,” I say, too focused on chasing his tongue to care about the major lack of blowjob etiquette as I grab the back of his neck and push his face back towards my dick. When he has returned to his previous task, I grab my cell phone off the nightstand and answer the call with a semi-breathless, “Why are you calling me from the next room?”

“Tell McCutcheon to turn down his fucking music, screamo kills my boner,” James says without preamble. His voice hitches a little, and through the wall, I hear the bang of the headboard.

“It’s not screamo, it’s post-hardcore, there’s a difference,” I breathe, and Ben must appreciate the defense, because he pulls off enough to circle his tongue around the head of my dick in a way that makes me want to fucking scream. I manage to control myself enough to force out, “Please tell me that you didn’t actually get your phone out to call me while someone’s dick is inside of you.”

Jamie snorts. “What, like this is the first time I’ve done it? Anyway, tell him to—wait. Why does your voice sound like that? Oh Lord, please tell me you’re not wrecking the midget. Sorry, wrecking Ben. Are you fucking him right now?”

“No, I’m not fucking him right now,” I breathe, reaching down to push Ben’s hair back so that his bangs don’t flop down and obscure the view of his full, gorgeous lips wrapped tight around my dick. He glances up at me through his eyelashes, blue eyes dark with want. I twist my head sharply to the side so that I can bury my face in the pillow, in hope of muffling the groan I can’t manage to hold back.

“Then why are you moaning? Are you jerking off? Is he jerking off, too? You insatiable fucking perverts, you’re just beating off to the sounds of us fucking, aren’t—fucking god, Alexander.”

“We’re not having a foursome, and if I wanted to listen to you and Alex having sex, I would turn the music down. But I don’t, so I’m leaving it how it is and hanging up the phone. Goodnight, Jamie.” I jab my thumb at the end call button and toss my phone back onto the nightstand.

Ben pulls off just long enough to whisper, “You’re so fucking rude, answering a phone call when your dick is in my mouth, what the fuck.”

“I’ll make it up to you, let me fuck your mouth,” I mutter, and the words are barely out before Ben is letting out a strangled moan and grabbing both of my hands, threading them into his hair and squeezing tight. I hold his head in place, I rock my hips up, pressing into his mouth until I feel his throat start to contract around the head of my cock. It feels amazing, but my goal isn’t to choke him—most guys I’ve hooked up with aren’t as quick to deepthroat as I am—so I pull back out and let him tongue the underside of my dick for a moment before I thrust back in, as deeply as I think he can handle.

True to his word, Ben doesn’t get nearly as rough with me as I’m being with him. He steers clear of touching my hips, though he occasionally curls his hands over my thighs and digs his nails in just a little. He lets me control the pace completely; sometimes I push up into his mouth, sometimes I’m yanking him down onto me, but the longer this goes on, the more I’m doing both at once. I’m starting to get close to coming, and for the first time in ages, the idea of it doesn’t scare me. I’m not freaking out—I know it’s not Dave, I know I’m safe, I know I want it, I know I’m sober—everything just feels so fucking good. This is Ben, and I trust him, I know he’s not going to pull some filthy trick and suddenly pin my hips in place so he can be in charge. He’s going to let me take, he’s doing this for me. That’s probably why, a second later, I’m jerking up into his mouth and muttering, “You’re—ungh, fucking greatest friend ever, god.”

He’d probably be laughing at me, if I wasn’t in the process of coming in his mouth. It’s the single greatest orgasm I’ve had in almost nine months. I hold his mouth in place while my body continues to spasm, and I can’t help it, I know that I’m practically crying for how good it feels, and they can definitely hear us in the room next door, but it doesn’t matter, because I feel like I’ve been coming for hours, and Ben is doing his best to relax his throat to accommodate the way I’m pushing up into him so he can swallow.

It’s nearly a full minute before I lose my grip on his hair enough to let him pull off. He gives one last lick along my now oversensitive shaft, and I let out another faint groan. I’ve barely had a second to start enjoying my afterglow when a fist bangs on the wall and Jamie calls, “Bullshit you’re not fucking him, G! You’ve had sex with everyone in this apartment, we all know what your orgasm noises sound like!”

“Wanna hear what Ben’s sound like?” I call back, and the answering laugh breaks off into a moan.

Ben is mouthing shaky kisses over my stomach. He says, “You don’t, it’s fine, you don’t have to do anything for me that you don’t want to,” but his credibility is totally shot by the fact that his eyes are squeezed shut and his hand is wrapped tight around his dick. I’m weirdly touched by the fact that he’s so dedicated to keeping his promise about not pressuring me that he’s willing to beat off instead of asking me to help him out.

“Don’t be an idiot, get up here,” I order, fisting a hand in his hair and dragging him up into a kiss.

He lets me knock his hand aside so that I can start stroking him, fast and somewhat rough, but when I try to move my other hand away, he shakes his head, sending my mouth skittering across his jaw as he gasps out, “Don’t let g—I want you to pull it harder, please, Garen.”

I roll him onto his back and sink my teeth into his shoulder, increasing the tempo of my hand and yanking on his hair as much as I think I can without ripping it out. His palms brush across my biceps, and I can tell he needs something to grab onto. Part of me wants to tell him it’s okay to touch me, to put his hands on my waist, or dig his nails into my back, but the thought of him moving in a way that would hold me in place, however indirectly… it sends a now too familiar bolt of panic through my gut. I squeeze my eyes shut to block it out and order, “Put your hands on the headboard.”

He does it immediately, winding his fingers around the spokes of the headboard so tightly that his knuckles turn white. His obedience calms me, and after a few seconds, I’m able to focus again on stroking him. His breathing is little more than a series of gasps and shudders at this point, but he still manages to choke out, “I want, can you—fuck, scratch me—”

I only have two hands, and both are busy—it only takes me a split second to decide that, given the choice, Ben is the only guy in the world who would get off more on the part that’s giving him pain than the part that’s giving him pleasure. Left hand still knotted in his hair, I let go of his dick and dig my nails into his chest, right over his heart, and drag them all the way down to his navel, leaving five raging red lines carved into his skin. His entire body goes still and tense as he comes, and I hastily press my torso down against his so that his cock is trapped between our stomachs, the only source of friction left on him now that my nails are digging into the side of his ribs. I can feel him pulsing against my abs, continuing to rut against me even after he’s finished coming, and eventually, I shift off of him so that I won’t put any unnecessary friction against him now. I end up sprawled out next to him, my face smashed into his pillow and his cum steadily beginning to glue my stomach to his sheets. I don’t even care; I’m still riding my own post-orgasm high. I mumble against the pillow, “That was the greatest idea you’ve ever had in your life. This is totally how you ended up as valedictorian last year, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ben replies, somehow able to call up his usual monotone even while red-faced, sweat-soaked and panting. “Principal Hammond called me into his office. I told him that someday, I would give you the first blowjob you’ve gotten in months, and it would be awesome. That’s how I became valedictorian. It was in my speech and everything.”

“Knew it,” I sigh, shifting closer to bury my face in the side of his neck. After a moment, I admit, “A year.” He makes a questioning noise in his throat. “First blowjob in a year. Last one I got was the last one you gave me, in October.” I lean back slightly to grin at him. “Totally worth the wait, dude.”

He rolls his eyes at me and turns onto his side so that he doesn’t have to look at me, but he makes no complaints when I curl up behind him with my arm around his waist.